


A Good Man

by Adenil



Series: Bruce Banner is Every Mark Ruffalo Character (Crossovers) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shutter Island (2010), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: All Mark Ruffalo characters are the same person, M/M, Names, extremely competent!Banner, the Shutter Island/The Avengers crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Which would be worse—to live as a monster? or to die as a good man?”<br/>_<br/><i> “I’ll give you all the passports I have, all the ones you would never find, on the condition that he—” Banner tapped Chuck’s face again. “Never gets out. Fury never gets to know about him. He’s special.” </i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i> “Special,” Clint repeated—and he really was Just Clint, then, not Agent Barton or the mysterious Hawkeye. He was Clint, lost and confused and afraid to lose all his new friends. </i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>“He’s very special to me.” Banner dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It was mostly crushed, the plastic cellophane barely clinging to the cardboard. He drew out one long stick, then a second and handed it to Clint. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Man

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic written because all of Ruffalo's characters are definitely the same person. 
> 
> Part of a series, but stands alone.

_It’s just a mission_ , Clint told himself—tried to tell himself. _Get in, get out, get reinstated_.

 

Truthfully, he didn’t even begin to believe his own lie. He’d known from the first moment that this wouldn’t be _just_ a mission. He’d known since Fury had sat him down and folded thick fingers against one another and pierced him with that solitary gaze. Oh, it was technically a mission. Technically this was SHIELD telling him that if he ever wanted to be trusted again after Loki he would do this. Technically, it also made him sick to his stomach.

 

It was a test of his loyalties. Did he care more about SHIELD? Or the newly formed Avengers?

 

Turns out, he cared more about SHIELD.

 

It was easy for Clint—no, but he was _Hawkeye_ right then—to climb into the crawlspace between floors at Stark Tower. Stark was trusting. Way, way too trusting. He’d already had floors built for them, rooms arranged for each of the Avengers, even Thor who had left immediately and Clint with whom he hadn’t exchanged more than ten words. Hell, the damned _Hulk_ got a floor to his own. Five floors, actually, if you counted the ridiculous number of new labs.

 

He slipped open the grate in the air vent soundlessly and scanned the room with his SHIELD-issue camera. He searched Banner’s room for signs of life. The camera told him everything about the room from the dust collecting on the wine cabinet to the paperback Harlequin romance novel hidden under the mattress. (Clint noted that for later blackmail; Hawkeye dismissed it.)

 

With the room empty, Hawkeye slipped through the grate and landed with a silent rush of air on the plush carpet. He was almost jealous of how nice Banner’s room was. It was more personable, more lived-in than his. He figured that was because Stark knew more about Banner. He’d been able to build a room that _suited_ Banner, instead of sticking him in a generic room as he had with Clint.

 

His only companions were the gun on his hip and the knife in his boot as he searched Banner’s room.

 

He flipped through the physical books and papers scattered throughout the room for hints of what Fury had told him to collect. He wasn’t looking for anything too specific. Clues, more like, that would come in handy when Banner inevitably ran. Something that might tell them where he would go, what he would do, and who he would become.

 

He found his clues. A wad of airplane tickets—some for coming weeks, some for planes that had already flown—stuffed into a potted plant. A series of newspaper clippings, all describing disasters around the world. And then, _jackpot_ , four passports from various countries. All four had Bruce Banner’s face, but not his name.

 

Hawkeye flipped through them quickly, memorizing the names he saw there. He sniffed as he did so, his nose a little itchy. _All the dust in here. Probably spends more time in the lab than in his room_. The top passport was the throwaway one. It listed one David Roberts, with a smiling picture of a short-haired Banner. He rotated through the rest. Michael Dunne, Edward Weeks, and Charles Aule all stared up at him.

 

Hawkeye sneezed. Then he realized.

 

He whipped around in a second he had his gun drawn and pointed at Banner. _Christ_ , he thought as he swept his gaze over Banner leaning easily against the doorframe, a thin cigarette dangling from his fingertips. _He’s good_.

 

“Didn’t know you smoked,” he said. He knew it was useless, but he kept his gun up anyway, staring down the line of the barrel. Call it training that kept him poised like that.

 

Banner gave him a pinched look, eyebrows drawing together. He slipped one hand into the pocket of his pants and took another long drag of his cigarette. Hawkeye saw the ember burn, ashes fall, and the wisp of smoke trailing from between Banner’s lips. “I don’t, always.”

 

He pushed off the door frame and sauntered over. Hawkeye held very still, just watching him, counting his breaths and Banner’s. Banner flicked his thumb over the butt of the cigarette, sending ashes into the carpet. His body was loose, fluid, and so unlike the Banner that Hawkeye had grown to know over the last few weeks. There was none of the hunched shoulders or frantically gripping hands that characterized the physicist’s movements.

 

Hawkeye was on edge, suddenly understanding why Fury viewed Banner as such a threat. He could see, now, why SHIELD tried so hard to keep tabs on him. Because he was _damn_ good. The person in front of Hawkeye wasn’t Bruce Banner—not by a long shot. Hawkeye held still until Banner had his chest pressed against the front of his gun.

 

“I only smoke,” Banner said, reaching down to tap the open passport on the desk. “When I’m him.”

 

Hawkeye didn’t have to glance down. He had it memorized. “Charles Aule.”

 

“Chuck,” Banner corrected easily. He took another drag on the cigarette. He didn’t try and move away from Hawkeye’s gun. He just stood there, pressed against it.

 

“Chuck,” Hawkeye echoed, and he watched as Banner’s eyes fluttered shut for just a moment as if lost in memory.

 

“Mm,” Banner hummed around the roundness of his cigarette. He drew it away, pinched between thumb and forefinger, and flicked more ashes to the ground. “Been a while since I was him.”

 

A bit of Clint broke through his agent’s mask, and Hawkeye lowered his gun. He didn’t holster it. He just kept it at his side and stared at the smoking man. “Look, Banner—”

 

“Did you know that everything in my SHIELD file is information I gave them?” Banner asked conversationally.

 

“No.” He tried to keep his tone curt, but he was interested.

 

“At least, everything from before Culver.” Banner leaned against the side of the desk. He talked with his hands like this, his face pinched together in concern. “All of it. I either gave it to them directly or created it for them to find.”

 

“Are you saying,” Hawkeye started slowly. “That your SHIELD file is a lie?”

 

Banner drew the cigarette to his lips again and took a long, slow drag. He kept his eyes locked to Hawkeye. He was appraising, concerned as his lips pursed around it and he drew the ember down to the last bare inch.

 

“What has you playing detective, Barton?”

 

Hawkeye shrugged. It was a light shrug, accompanied by the easy smirk that Coulson had taught him to posture with. It did nothing to Banner’s calm, but it made him feel more in control. “Just want to make sure my new team doesn’t break up.”

 

“Ah. That’s why you brought a gun?”

 

With a roll of his eyes, Hawkeye holstered his gun. “There. Happy?”

 

Banner dropped his gaze to the gun at Hawkeye’s hip. He trailed his eyes over the metal and leather there for a long while before reaching forward. He had his cigarette trailing from his right hand as his left found the buckle over the top and closed it with a small _snap_. It was a symbolic gesture. They both knew Hawkeye could still draw the gun just as quickly.

 

He expected Banner to drop his hand, maybe step away. But he didn’t. He kept his fingertips trailing over the handle of the gun, never lifting his eyes. “Is it loaded?”

 

“Of course.” Hawkeye frowned at him. He needed a way to regain control of this situation. “Why would I carry around an unloaded gun?”

 

Banner gave him a tiny smile, and _there_ was Bruce behind Chuck. Only Bruce Banner could be that bad at smiling, that out of practice. Finally, he dropped his hand from Hawkeye’s waist. He drew the last of the nicotine from his cigarette and snuffed it out on the desktop, right beside Chuck’s pinched face on the passport.

 

“I’ve had to carry around unloaded guns before,” Banner told him. He tore his gaze up, away from Hawkeye’s gun and to his eyes. “Who sent you, boss?”

 

Hawkeye shifted uncomfortably. “I think you know.” He glanced around, registering escape routes. The window was probably his best bet, despite his lack of a grappling hook. As long as Stark hadn’t done the ridiculous and reinforced it for the Hulk—and that was probably _exactly_ what he’d done. He’d have to make a break for the door, then.

 

“Fury?” At Hawkeye’s nod, Banner went on. “He seems to think he can stay one step ahead of me.”

 

“He can. Is,” Hawkeye corrected himself.

 

“He hasn’t been a step ahead since I was born,” Banner said, and then laughed at some unknown joke. His laugh was barely a gust of air, tiny and forgotten. He seemed to sober after a moment. “I’ll make you a deal, Clint.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’ll give you all the passports I have, all the ones you would never find, on the condition that _he_ —” Banner tapped Chuck’s face again. “Never gets out. Fury never gets to know about him. He’s special.”

 

“Special,” Clint repeated—and he really was Just Clint, then, not Agent Barton or the mysterious Hawkeye. He was Clint, lost and confused and afraid to lose all his new friends.

 

“He’s very special to me.” Banner dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It was mostly crushed, the plastic cellophane barely clinging to the cardboard. He drew out one long stick, then a second and handed it to Clint.

 

Clint accepted it. He’d smoked before—as a stupid kid, a few times on missions—but he tried not to make a habit out of it. He still slipped the paper tube between his lips and leaned forward as Banner lit it for him with an ancient, dilapidated lighter. Clint drew in the smoke and held it in his mouth, watching as Banner lit his own with a heavy draw.

 

They both blew out smoke in the same instant and stood together in silence. They smoked until Clint’s cigarette was half gone, a long tail of ashes clinging for one extended second before plummeting to the floor. Banner tipped his heel forward and ground the ashes into the carpet with a barely-there smile.

 

“You don’t have to give me your passports,” Clint said when the silence grew too great. “I’m not… I don’t even think I’ll make a report to Fury.”

 

“Thanks, boss,” Banner said, and he closed his eyes as he said it. He had his face tipped up to the ceiling, lazy smoke curling around his cheeks. For a long moment Clint just looked at him. Looked at his pinched face and long eyelashes. He’d sort of realized, on that street corner in Manhattan, that Banner was a handsome guy. _Cute_ was maybe a better word, which shouldn’t have applied to a man over forty, but it did. Hunched and wary, but housing incredible strength beneath his skin.

 

It was different, though, when Banner was playing a role. When he wasn’t a world-renowned scientist of Gamma radiation, but simply _Chuck_.

 

“Tell me about him?” Clint asked before he could stop himself. He quickly shoved his cigarette between his lips again to stop himself from saying anything else.

 

But Banner just rolled his head to one side, parting eyelids and gracing Clint with that concerned look. It was such a gentle look, focused completely on Clint as if Banner wanted to gather him into his arms and accept all his problems as his own.

 

“I’m a police officer,” Banner said after a moment. “U.S. Marshal, actually. I go where they tell me, investigate what they ask me to. I’m not, ah…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not the best at my job. Don’t like to pay attention during briefings. Can lead to a lot of trouble. But I try, you know?”

 

“A Marshal is a hard cover to maintain,” Clint said.

 

“I don’t do it for whoever’s tailing me.” Banner tipped his head forward, glanced down at the ground.

 

“Sorry.” Clint flicked his cigarette methodically, ashes falling in twos and threes to the ground. “I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have asked. I should just leave.”

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“No, I…” Clint looked at him, really looked, at the easy lean of his hip against the desk, at his shoulders slouched to one side, at the cigarette clutched in his hand. “It never happened, Bruce. Okay?”

 

Banner winced at his name. He turned and snuffed out the cigarette beside his earlier one, and just like that he folded into himself. He wrinkled his nose, batting a hand in front of his face to wave away the smoke. In a flash his shoulders were hunched and bent again and his arms fell to tangle his fingers together. He examined a spot on the floor and gave Clint a tiny, self-depreciating smile.

 

“You’re right,” Banner said. His entire transformation had taken maybe a second, and Clint was reeling from it. “It never happened. Sorry, Clint.” He pushed off the desk the way Bruce Banner would, all awkward limbs, self-aware of his body. “You should go.”

 

Clint wasn’t sure what to say as he hauled himself onto the desk and through the hole in the air duct. He had the grating replaced and was halfway back to his own room before he realized he still had his cigarette between his fingertips.

 

He snuffed it on metal and tucked it into the pocket of his suit, trying not to think about it too hard.

 

*

 

Banner never ran. Clint never gave that report to Fury, and Fury never asked. Maybe it was a test that Clint had barely passed.

 

They were lost, for a while, swept up in heroing and their own lives. Maybe it was natural that _Banner_ became _Bruce_ and _Hawkeye_ became _Clint_. Clint knew that names were important. They gave hints at what was beneath the skin.

 

*

 

This time, Clint wasn’t on a mission from Fury. He was just being a general asshole and hiding in the air ducts to spy on his teammates.

 

He was partially hoping for blackmail material and partially hoping to reassure himself that Tony was, indeed, alive. After Mandarin and all the chaos that resulted, they had all taken their time making sure that Tony was still there.

 

Clint was curled up around his bow, methodically running his hands over the string and watching Tony dance around the lab. It was a bit creepy, maybe, but that’s what friends did, right? That’s what former-SHIELD-agent friends did, anyway.

 

Problem being, Tony was kind of boring.

 

Oh, he was fun to watch sometimes when he worked in the lab. In the lab he was a conductor, a professional athlete, a genius, and an artist all rolled up into one. His hands would fly over holograms as fast as the eye could see, just creating. Clint preferred watching Bruce, though. Whereas Tony was a blast of energy and moving limbs, Bruce was contained and direct. Clint could always see how one movement flowed into the other with Bruce, and it relaxed him.

 

Get the two together, and there was no telling what would result. Today, the result was incredibly boring.

 

As soon as Bruce had walked into the lab with his rusty smile, Clint knew he was in for the long-haul. Bruce was too good for him to sneak away, even if he was hidden in the air vents. He would have to hold still and silent and hope that Bruce didn’t notice him. He hunkered down in the vents and watched Bruce reassure himself that Tony was alive.

 

“How’d you like to hear the story?” Tony asked, as if he was going to allow Bruce to say ‘no.’

 

So Bruce sat, Tony sat, and Tony told his tale of kidnapping and intrigue and science. It should have been more exciting, but Clint had literally heard the story twenty-four times within the last two weeks. Versions of the story from Fury and Tony. Fury's were perfunctory, Tony's were spastic and excited. Watching Bruce slowly fall asleep just added to the torment.

 

Plus, Tony had a really roundabout way of telling stories. He was finally winding down nearly three hours later (when Clint was desperate to pull out his hair and Bruce was still snoring away), when Bruce dropped the pen he was holding and it all went south.

 

“You with me?”

 

“I was, yeah.” Bruce scrubbed his hand over his face, desperate to appear awake. “We, uh, we were at, uh…”

 

“You were actively napping?” Clint almost laughed at the look on Tony’s face, but that would have given away his cover. _He doesn’t know how to deal with_ not _being the center of attention_.

 

“I was…I-I-I, uh, drifted.” Bruce made an abortive gesture with one hand, his stuttering at maximum.

 

“Where did I lose you?”

 

“Elevator in Switzerland.” Bruce said, and Clint frowned. Bruce had definitely still been awake for that. Been awake for _most_ of it, in fact. He’d only started ‘drifting’ when Tony got a little personal with the panic attack stories…

 

… _Oh_.

 

Tony grimaced, clearly perturbed. “So you heard none of it.”

 

Bruce had his head in his hands like he was blocking the light. “I’m sorry; I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m not a therapist. It’s not my training. I don’t have the—”

 

“What? The time?” Tony drew his eyebrows together.

 

“Temperament,” Bruce said, and suddenly Clint was back in Banner’s room nine months ago when _Chuck_ had been out to play. His face was so pinched, concerned, as though he urgently _wanted_ to have the temperament to help Tony, but he couldn’t. His brown eyes were searching, desperate to find a way to take on Tony’s problems without causing detriment to himself.

 

Tony, of course, noticed none of this. He forgave as easily as he forgot and slipped right into another tale. “You know what? Now that I think about it, oh God, my original wound… 1983, all right? I’m fourteen years old and I still have a nanny?”

 

Clint watched as Bruce shook his head before nodding along to Tony’s story, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Only it wasn’t sleep, couldn’t be sleep, because Bruce really was _that_ good. Good enough to fool Clint into thinking he was asleep, and therefore good enough to fool Tony into thinking he could spill all his troubles on deaf ears. It was a little scary.

 

Before Clint could get settled for another long-winded explanation of things that didn’t matter, Pepper thankfully appeared and rescued them. Bruce had such an incredibly grateful look on his face that Clint couldn’t help but smile as Pepper ushered Tony from the lab amidst complaints and promises to continue their chat later.

 

Then Bruce was alone (save for the agent in the ceiling). Clint watched him fold his hands together for a moment, worrying his fingertips against one another. Then he raised them and buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t scrubbing sleep away; he wasn’t desperately trying to wake his skin. He was just hiding.

 

“You’d better come out now.”

 

Clint startled a little in his perch. He thought about pretending he wasn’t there—maybe Bruce did this every time he was alone in a room? But it was a lost cause, and so he kicked through the grating and dropped to the floor.

 

He swung his bow over his shoulder and sauntered over to where Bruce was still sitting with his head in his hands. He took up residence on Tony’s couch. “How long have you known I was there?”

 

“Since I walked in.” Bruce peeked up at him through his fingers and gave him a wan smile. “I have a…sense about these things.”

 

“I see.” Clint ran a hand over the bow string over his chest. “Didn’t mean to pry. Just wanted to make sure he was all right.”

 

“We all do.” He hid his face again. “It’s… been a while since anyone’s spilled their troubles on me like that.”

 

Clint shrugged even though Bruce couldn’t see him. He glanced around the room a bit, taking in the sight of half-finished projects, gleaming metal, and one rumpled Bruce Banner. “Too bad you don’t have the temperament for it.” He figured there was no use pretending he hadn’t heard their conversation, and Bruce seemed to want to talk about it.

 

Bruce dropped his hands. He folded them together over his knee, but it wasn’t in his typical way. He was almost jittery with energy, not his usual wilting-flower self. He gazed at Clint with his personas all overlapping, like he wasn’t sure which one would stick. Clint let him work through it until Bruce’s face came together in concern and he stood up.

 

“I need a smoke,” he said as he headed for the door.

 

Maybe he should have stayed there, glued to the couch. Or maybe he should have crawled back into the air vent and chalked this up as another thing that never happened. But Clint didn’t. Instead, he rose as well and followed Bruce out the door. “I’ll join you.”

 

Bruce’s sad little smile told him he’d done the right thing.

 

They rode the elevator up in companionable silence, both with their hands in their pockets. When they arrived at Bruce’s floor, Bruce strolled in like he owned the place. Which was _weird_ , Clint decided. _Even though he does own the place_.

 

They found themselves in Bruce’s room with Bruce digging through a cream-colored jacket hanging in his closet. There was the usual fumbling for the pack, which was still just as bent and crushed as last time Clint had seen it. Clint accepted the stick and leaned in as Bruce lit it for him. He drew in a breath, encouraging the red-hot ember, and watched as Bruce stood to one side and lit his own cigarette.

 

It took a few clicks of the igniter to do so, but when Bruce finally pulled back and slipped his eyes shut, letting the smoke trail from between his lips, he looked more relaxed than he had since he’d walked into Tony’s lab.

 

“You know,” Bruce said as he exhaled the last wisp of smoke. “I wasn’t raised to run, but it seems that’s all I ever do anymore.”

 

“Run?”

 

“Yeah.” Bruce flicked a few dry embers from his cigarette and they tumbled to the floor.

 

Clint watched them fall. He wanted to say that Bruce hadn’t run in months. Had never once tried to escape the friendship he’d found with the Avengers. But he had a feeling that wasn’t what Bruce meant. “Sometimes,” Clint said, groping for the words. “Running is how you live to fight another day.”

 

Bruce turned to look at him, brown eyes almost hopeful as he searched Clint. Clint could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t finding exactly what he was looking for, but maybe it was close enough. “Fighting’s what I’m good at.”

 

“We’ve got that in common.”

 

Bruce smiled suddenly, bright and instant. It was a tiny explosion across his face, and Clint liked it. Bruce’s smiles were always rusty, broken from years of neglect. This smile was quick and easy, something he could fall back on as naturally as breathing.

 

“Call me by his name?”

 

There was that crossroads again, where Clint maybe should have decided something different. Maybe he should have played dumb or shrugged away. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten himself in this situation, smoking cigarettes with a man looking at him with that quiet intensity. Like he would accept all Clint’s problems in a heartbeat if he could—but he _couldn’t_ , and to Bruce that was the most horrible failing of all.

 

“Sure, Chuck,” Clint said, and Bruce leaned in a kissed him.

 

More of those _maybe’s_. Like, maybe Bruce was too emotionally vulnerable for this. Maybe Clint didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Maybe he should have felt used as Bruce tried to cram him into a role. Maybe he should have questioned why it was _now_ of all times that Bruce wanted to change the nature of their friendship.

 

But Bruce kissed him like he knew him. Kissed him like Clint was the back of his hand and he was inside Clint’s mind, nestled up with his thoughts and holding them for him. He kissed with stale smoke on his lips and a memory of a promise behind his teeth.

 

It was chaste, a bare moment of a kiss. When Bruce pulled back Clint found he wanted to follow him. He wanted to kiss away the concerned look on Bruce’s face. Concerned because he’d done something wrong? Or had finally done something right, but too little too late?

 

“What are we doing, Chuck?” Clint asked before silence could truly fall.

 

Bruce closed his eyes at the name, more lazy smoke trailing over him, winding through his hair. “You tell me.”

 

“Guess we’re doing this,” he said, and drew their lips together again.

 

It was just a role to fall in, like the thousands of others he had fallen into before. He didn’t have to be Hawkeye or Agent Barton or someone undercover or even Clint. He was just this man that Bruce—that Chuck—wanted. Wanted to fix, wanted to hold, wanted a lot of things from but mostly wanted to _give_ happiness and _take_ sorrow.

 

Clint had his eyes open, half-lidded, to see Bruce so near as they kissed. Bruce’s were closed, dark brown hidden from the world as he imagined what he wanted to see. Clint couldn’t blame him for it—didn’t _want_ to blame him for it. It was all right for Bruce to pretend in this moment that Clint was someone else, just as it was all right for Clint to pretend that these familiar kisses were for him.

 

Bruce trailed up his hand—cigarette still poised in his fingers—to rest against Clint’s neck, and it was enough. Enough for Clint to deepen the kiss and to set his own cigarette precariously on the edge of the desk. He drew his arms up around Bruce’s waist and pulled him close, bodies flush together, and begged for access to Bruce with his tongue.

 

Bruce parted beneath him, soft and pliant lips willing to go wherever Clint took him. And Clint wanted to take him far, far away to a place where he could kiss away Bruce’s notion that all the world’s problems were his to bear. But he started here, in this room, exploring the smoke in Bruce’s mouth and the quiet gasps he could rend from the other man.

 

They kissed until Clint couldn’t breathe. Until he was panting, quaking, desperate and Bruce was the only solid in his life. Clint felt like liquid—like water roiling to a boil. Bruce was the container within which he fit. He could see the edges of the persona Bruce needed from him in every hushed breath, every exhalation of encouragement, and so Clint became someone else. Someone whose name he didn’t know, but who Bruce knew as intimately as a lover.

 

“You okay, boss?” Bruce asked when Clint couldn’t bear it any longer and pulled back to grab a lungful of air.

 

“Yeah.” He rested their foreheads together. Bruce’s eyes were still closed, but Clint could almost see the intensity of his stare behind skin and lashes. He reached up and plucked the cigarette from Bruce’s fingertips, setting it beside his own on the lip of the desk.

 

Bruce gave him a small smile then, curling his fingers around the back of Clint’s neck and cradling him. Clint leaned in and kissed him again, holding Bruce and maneuvering him away from the desk. They stumbled across the room, long limbs entangling, laughs stunted by tranquil kisses, until Clint had him backed against the bed and tipped him over into it.

 

He pressed kisses against Bruce’s neck, ran his hands over the buttons on his shirt and slowly teased it open. Bruce was a follower like this, standing beside Clint but also one step behind. His movements were slower, fingers constantly asking for permission that Clint was happy to provide.

 

“Chuck.” He pulled back. He wanted to lock eyes with Bruce, but his were still closed, still concentrating on making the illusion fit. “It’s all right. I want this.”

 

Bruce let out a tiny, broken sound of sobbing laughter. He reached up and they were kissing again, more forceful and urgent, like Bruce felt the only way to protect him was to climb inside him. Bruce flipped them so he was on top, long lean body pressed against Clint and driving him into the cotton sheets.

 

It should have been weird, then, as Bruce brought their hips together in a slow easy roll. It should have felt unnatural as Bruce put on the face of another man and forced Clint into a box in which he would never fit. But it wasn’t.

 

It was smooth and easy, because Bruce knew him. Knew him like he’d been the one spilling his troubles on the couch. Knew him inside and out, backwards and front, as they rutted against each other and Clint pulled back with a gasp.

 

He was still gasping as Bruce flipped open the front of his pants and worked the zipper down. Bruce kissed at a place where his neck met his shoulder—no teeth, no suction, just soft and simple kisses.

 

“Let me take care of you, boss,” he murmured into his neck.

 

Clint let him. He let Bruce do with him as he pleased, and it pleased Bruce to please Clint. It didn’t take long for rough, sure hands to drive him to that brink and throw him over.

 

He shuddered against Bruce as Bruce held him, eyes still closed, whispering in his ear _it’s all right_. _I’ve got you_.

 

It was like a secret they shared as Bruce slid off of him and pulled Clint to his chest. Clint was panting as he looked up, seeing Bruce’s eyelashes flush against his cheeks as he fought to maintain the imaginary man in his arms. Clint didn’t say anything for a long time, although he wanted to return Bruce’s touches, wanted to pleasure him as well.

 

The façade was slipping slowly, inexorably away. Clint could see Bruce struggling to hold on to it until he tipped his head down and pressed one final kiss to Clint’s lips.

 

“It’s better to live as a monster.”

 

And Bruce opened his eyes.


End file.
